---
title: "Upgrading from the Legacy Sass API"
---

The Legacy Sass API is deprecated and will be removed from the Grid in a future major release. The new API has been designed to be easy to upgrade to - it supports almost the same set of properties as the old API, with a few minor differences documented below.

{% warning %}
If you created an app on v27 or earlier and have not updated your import paths, you will be using the Legacy Sass API even if you upgraded your ag-Grid dependency to v28. You can recognise Legacy Sass API import paths because they will have `/dist/` or `/src/` in them, e.g. `@import "ag-grid-community/src/styles/ag-grid.scss"`.

Follow the instructions in this document to upgrade.
{% /warning %}

{% note %}
If you need to make changes to an app that is still using the legacy API, you can consult the [Archived Documentation for the Legacy API](./global-style-customisation-sass-legacy/).
{% /note %}

### Benefits of the new API

In addition to the benefits fo the new CSS Variable-driven styling system, the new Sass API provides some benefits:

1. Long-term stability and feature completeness. The Legacy API is being kept around for at least one major version in order to allow a grace period where customers can continue using the old API if they encounter issues with the new one. But the new API is the future, and as we add new features in future minor releases these may not be fully supported by the legacy API.
1. Better validation to catch accidental passing of invalid parameter values.
1. Faster compile times.

## Upgrade instructions

In order to upgrade, you need to:

1. Alter the import paths to include the new API rather than the legacy API
1. Pass your theme parameters to the new `grid-styles` mixin instead of the `ag-theme-themename` mixin
1. Check the list of breaking changes below and see if you need to change any parameter values

### Altering your Sass import paths and using the grid-styles mixin

```scss
// Legacy API
@import "~ag-grid-community/src/styles/ag-grid.scss";
@import "~ag-grid-community/src/styles/ag-theme-alpine/sass/ag-theme-alpine-mixin.scss";
.ag-theme-alpine {
  @include ag-theme-alpine((
    alpine-active-color: red
  ));
  .ag-header-cell {
    font-style: italic;
  }
}

// NOTE: Depending on how you have configured your Sass build the import paths may be
// prefixed with `@`, `~`, or a relative path to `node_modules`. Keep the same style
// of import. The above path is a sass-loader path (`~` prefix), so we edit it to:

// New API
@use "~ag-grid-community/styles" as ag;
// ^^^ Update the import path. Note that `@import` has changed to `@use {path} as {name}`
@include ag.grid-styles((
  // ^^^ Include ag.grid-styles which it is no longer nested  in .ag-theme-{name} {}
  theme: alpine,
  // ^^^ Add the theme name to the mixin
  alpine-active-color: red,
  // ^^^ Pass the same parameters. The new API validates parameters so you will be
  //     notified if any of the names or values you pass are not valid for the new API
));
.ag-theme-alpine {
  .ag-header-cell {
    font-style: italic;
  }
}
// ^^^ put any custom CSS rules below the grid-styles mixin, wrapped in the theme class
```

In the above example the Alpine theme is modified but not renamed. If you have renamed the theme, use the new `extend-theme` parameter:

```scss
// Renaming Alpine ag-theme-custom-name in the Legacy API
.ag-theme-custom-name {
  @include ag-theme-alpine((
    alpine-active-color: red
  ));
  .ag-header-cell {
    font-style: italic;
  }
}

// Renaming Alpine to ag-theme-custom-name in the new API
@include ag.grid-styles((
  theme: custom-name,
  extend-theme: alpine,
  alpine-active-color: red,
));
.ag-theme-custom-name {
  .ag-header-cell {
    font-style: italic;
  }
}
// ^^^ put any custom CSS rules below the grid-styles mixin, wrapped in the theme class
```

### Grid Modules

If you are using grid [Modules](./modules/) you will need to add the `@ag-grid-community/styles` module to your dependencies and alter the import paths as follows.

```scss
// Legacy API
@import "~@ag-grid-community/core/dist/styles/ag-grid.scss";

// New API
@use "~@ag-grid-community/styles" as ag;
```

### Breaking changes

We have tried to make the new Sass Styling API as backwards-compatible as possible, but there are a few breaking changes:

1. The backwards-compatibility layer introduced in v23 (released 2020) for the benefit of applications written for v22 and below has been removed. This is necessary in order to prepare for the [upcoming release of Sass in late 2022](https://github.com/sass/sass/blob/main/accepted/module-system.md#timeline) which will remove support for global variables. In practice, this means that if your application was initially created before March 2020 and you are still using the v22 method of configuring themes (setting global variables like `$ag-foreground-color: red;`) then you will need to switch to using the map-based configuration API that is shared by both the Legacy Sass API and the new Sass Styling API.

1. `borders-side-button` used to both add a border to the side buttons (vertical tabs), and set the background color when the tab was selected. Now it only sets the border. Use `side-button-selected-background-color` to set the background color.

1. Removed `full-width-tabs`. This caused the tabs to expand to fill the space available and was used by the Material theme. If you need the same effect, use CSS:

   ```css
   .your-theme .ag-tab {
     flex: 1 1 auto;
   }
   ```

1. Removed `ag-param($param)`, a Sass function that was replaced at compile time with the value of `$param`. All theme variables are now dynamic. Use `var` instead:

   ```scss
   // old way:
   .my-element {
     color: ag-param(foreground-color);
   }
   // new way:
   .my-element {
     color: var(--ag-foreground-color);
     // ^^^ note the --ag- prefix
   }
   ```

1. Removed `ag-color-property()`, a Sass mixin that outputted a CSS variables with a fallback for IE11. It is no longer required now that IE11 is not a supported browser. Use `var` instead:

   ```scss
   // old way
   .my-element {
     @include ag-color-property(color, header-foreground-color);
   }
   // new way
   .my-element {
     color: var(--ag-header-foreground-color);
   }
   ```

1. Removed `%ag-text-input`, a Sass placeholder selector for styling text inputs, is now a mixin:

   ```scss
   // old way
   %ag-text-input {
     color: #999;
   }
   // new way
   @include ag.text-input {
     color: #999;
   }
   ```
